The Socialite and the Bodyguard Read online

  Nash headed to the back to find them and met Mike halfway there.

  “Got it?”

  Mike shook his head. “Kayla sent me off to find one of the organizers. Maybe they could tell us if there’s any and where exactly it’s at. Everything’s a mess back there.”

  “I’ll help her.” He quickened his pace. Mike shouldn’t have left her alone, not even for a few minutes.

  Kayla had specifically forbidden him to put the fear of God in her staff. She didn’t want everyone nervous, didn’t want Greg nervous, didn’t want anyone on her staff offended. They were supposed to protect her, but from where he was standing it looked as though so far she was doing all the protecting.

  And someone on her staff didn’t deserve protection.

  Not that the e-mail had turned out to be much of a clue. Nick, an old friend and now business partner, had tracked it. Timed delivery had been set up from Kayla’s home office. To which her entire entourage had access.

  He opened the first door with a National Canine Club sign. Grooming stations lined the walls, buckets, brushes and about a million stacked boxes filled the place. But Kayla wasn’t there.

  He moved on to the next room and found her in the back. Way in the back. The room was long and narrow, stacks of dog-show accessories piled six feet high in places.

  “Hey, need a hand?”

  She turned and brushed her hair out of her face. Silky locks, slim frame, endless legs. She really was stunning. Just didn’t have a bad side. No wonder the paparazzi loved photographing her. She was standing on one of the dog crates that were piled high in the back. Some people came with a whole pack of dogs and keeping all their crates in the hotel room would have been impossible, so they were brought down for storage.

  “I’m almost there.” She scaled another crate, moving higher.

  He strode her way. “Let me do that.”

  Either she couldn’t hear him or didn’t want his help because she took another big step up. The pile of cages rattled.

  He broke into a run. “Kayla!”

  She reached for the cardboard box on top that sported a picture of purple spray bottles on the side. Still too high. She climbed another crate. “I think I found the secret stash.” She grinned back at him.

  He was almost there.

  She grabbed the box at last and showed it to him with triumph in her blue eyes. “Just what we needed.”

  Her leg wobbled, the crate shifted, bumping against another. And then, before he could warn her, before he could reach her, the whole tower came tumbling down, taking her with it.

  He dove forward, got clipped in the jaw and saw a couple of stars. A cross hook in the boxing ring couldn’t have been more effective. He ignored the pain and went for her, saw her roll as a steel crate crashed to the ground inches from her head.

  “Nash!”

  Then he was there, using his body to protect as much of her as he could. But still, by the time the avalanche stopped, she was half-buried.

  He heaved a heavy crate off her. “Are you hurting anywhere?”

  “What do you think?” She was still holding the damn cardboard box.

  “Don’t move. When I get you clear, just give me a minute to assess the damage.” He lifted another crate off her. “You think you broke anything?”

  She sat up. “Give it up, Nash. I’m not going to give you an excuse to ship me back home. I came for Tsini and I’m staying here.”

  He crouched next to her and put his hand gently on the foot closest to him, pulled off her sandals. Bit back a curse. He loved women, but would never understand them. Why on earth would anyone scale perilously stacked crates in four-inch heels? He put some pressure on her toes. “Tell me if this hurts.”

  When she said nothing, he moved on to the next foot. Then the ankles. One of her knees was bruised. His jaw tightened at the sight. He moved on to the rest of her legs, examining her as close to the edge of her indecently short skirt as he dared. He ignored how smooth her skin was, how toned her muscles, the light scent of her sophisticated perfume. He would rather have stood in front of a firing squad than acknowledge that a fluff piece like Kayla Landon could get him all hot and bothered.

  “Your arms?” He kept his voice professional.

  She flexed her fingers, rolled her wrists, bent her elbows then shrugged her shoulders. “I’m telling you, nothing’s broken. You’re overreacting.”

  “Look at me.” He checked her irises, looking deep into her blue eyes, which were tinged with a touch of green, the color of seawater near the surface, the way it looked when you came up after a long dive, toward the sun and air. He blinked.

  He was probably too close to her if he could see all that detail. His gaze dipped to her lips, which were glossed with something that smelled like strawberries. Definitely too close, his brain said. Not close enough, another part of his anatomy insisted.

  He pulled back with effort. “Did you hit your head?”

  She gave a rueful smile, those tempting lips curving. “Came down on my over-photographed behind.”

  Definitely a body part of hers that he wasn’t going to think about in any detail. “All right,” he said brusquely and stepped away from her. “I don’t think you have a concussion. Stand up carefully and let me know if you’re dizzy.”

  She rolled her eyes at him and refused his extended hand.

  She was a piece of work all right. He had a feeling that the key to keeping her safe was going to be not letting her get to him. He picked up the cardboard box that she’d set down while he’d been examining her. The damn thing held nothing but a jumble of leashes. He tossed it aside. “I’m taking you back to your room.”

  He went up in the elevator with her, handed her over to Dave, then made his way down into that storage room for another look. He pushed behind the crates, to the wall, and found a door to a back hallway. Empty at the moment, save for all the National Canine Club posters.

  But somebody could have been back there earlier. Somebody could have pushed a crate to make sure she fell.

  And if Nash hadn’t shown up after Mike had left, if Kayla had been here alone, who knew what else the bastard would have done to her.

  Nash scanned every nook of the area as cold fury filled him.

  He’d promised Welkins that he wasn’t going to go overboard on this mission. He’d promised Kayla that he wouldn’t upset her staff.

  To hell with that.

  He wasn’t going let anything happen to Kayla or Greg Landon. And no sick bastard was going to make a coat of the poodle.

  BY THE TIME the knock sounded on the door of the adjoining room that night, Kayla was exhausted and sore from her tumble earlier. She had a suite with three bedrooms, plus adjoining rooms on each side. Her brother had a room in the suite, so did her bodyguards. One would use the room, the other would hang out in the living room, for most of the night anyway. Elvis was in one of the adjoining rooms, Nash was in the other. Tom, Ivan and Fisk had their own rooms across the hall.

  “Come in.”

  She put down the show’s welcome packet she was reading, flinching when her bruised knee came in contact with the coffee table. Thank God the injury was pretty minor. She was grateful that she hadn’t gotten hurt worse than she had. She was determined to enjoy the show despite the stupid threats. Tsini deserved to have her fun. And they were going to have fun. Both of them.

  “Actually, I was hoping that you would come over.” Nash stood in the open doorway.

  Mike rose to go with her, but she shook her head so he sat back down in front of the TV. He’d taken it hard that she’d fallen when he hadn’t been there. Especially because Nash had been. Some kind of a rivalry was going on there, but she didn’t have the energy to deal with it right now.

  She padded across the plush carpet barefooted, feeling a twinge of discomfort when Nash closed the door behind her. She was more than aware of the king-size bed that dominated the room, and of how close he was standing. The only way to get away from him was to walk
toward the bed.

  The room was neat almost to the point of looking unlived-in. He’d already unpacked and put everything away.

  “What is it?” she asked as she turned to face him.

  He nodded toward his open laptop on the desk, the only sign that the room had an occupant. “You got an e-mail message today.”

  A second passed before she understood what he was saying. “You hacked into my e-mail?” She looked over, then saw that the sign-in on the screen was his. The inbox was empty save a single item. How had her e-mail ended up in his inbox? And where did he keep his own messages?

  “You left your e-mail on while you slept on the plane.” He was infuriatingly nonchalant, six foot two of insolent male.

  “And you thought it was a good idea to pry into my private life?” Truth be told, she liked his tough-guy attitude, she definitely liked his tough-guy looks, but it was clear that they were going to have to redefine some boundaries.

  “If you want something from me, you have to ask before you take.” She kept her voice measured to let him know that this point was non-negotiable. He could either respect her privacy or start packing and checking on flights back to Philly. Mike and Dave were capable of watching over both her and Tsini. And Tom was here as well. Plus her manager, plus her agent. She felt pretty well-protected.

  Those insolent eyes watched her without blinking. “You might want to look at this.”

  She had to find a way to reestablish that she was the boss.

  For one, if Nash wanted something from her, he would need to come to her and not the other way around. It’d been a mistake for her to come here, into his personal space where he held every advantage. Where the air was filled with his faint masculine scent, distracting her. “I’ll look at it on my own laptop.” By the time she’d woken up on the plane they were landing, and she hadn’t had time to check her e-mail.

  “You’ll want to look at it here.”

  Something in his voice stopped her. She was practically next to the laptop anyway. She reached over and clicked to open the message, then the attachment.

  “This is from last night. I don’t understand.” But then she began to. She felt chilled suddenly. “It was taken by someone inside the apartment.”

  He nodded.

  “The TV crew was there.” She scrambled to think of all the names and faces.

  “They stayed in your kitchen.”

  “I was too distracted. I didn’t keep track of them.” She tried to remember.

  “I did.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense. Someone must have snuck into the den when you weren’t looking. One of them snapped this picture, obviously.”

  “Or one of your staff.” He flashed a loaded look toward the closed door behind him. “Motive would be the next question. Have you had any trouble with any of them lately?”

  She stammered out a stunned, “No.”

  “Any trouble ever?”

  “They’re my family,” she snapped.

  “Family can do nasty things to a person,” he told her, and she wondered if he was speaking from experience.

  “Not mine.” Not beyond her father’s refusal to take his two younger children seriously, and her mother’s inability to ever stand up for them. Her parents had been who they had been. They hadn’t been perfect, but they hadn’t been terrible either.

  “First thing tomorrow morning, before we head out for our fun adventure of the day, I’m going to question your staff.” His face was set in a mask of determination. He wasn’t asking. He was laying down the law for her.

  She stuck her chin out. “No.”

  He considered her. “Did you know there was a door behind those crates you fell off of? Could be someone pushed them.”

  That gave her pause, but only for a moment. “If anyone was there, I would have seen him. I climbed too high. That was my fault. I didn’t pay attention.”

  He didn’t seem impressed with her explanation. “We don’t know for sure where any of your staff was at that point.”

  Anyone who messed with her people messed with her. She walked up and stopped a short foot from him. “You’re wasting your energy going in this direction. You need to find the people who don’t like my family, not bug people who love me. I’m not going to let you make me paranoid. These are my people. I trust them more than I trust you. You’re welcome to investigate anything. I’d be glad for your help, I really would be. But you’re not to harass my staff.” She drew a longer breath at last and pulled her spine ramrod-straight. “Is that clear?”

  He had the gall to look amused. “It’s often the people who are closest—”

  “Listen to me. My staff is my solid base. They’re my only support system.”

  “Your security blanket?” he inquired dispassionately.

  She couldn’t believe he was mocking her. She jabbed her index finger right into the middle of his mile-wide chest. “Leave them alone. I mean it.”

  As quick as a striking cobra, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer, nose to nose. A dangerous light came into his eyes. The air seemed so thick with tension she half expected lightning. For a second she thought he was going to kiss her.

  How irrational was that?

  It wasn’t as if he’d shown any sign that he was attracted to her. Her gaze dipped to his lips anyway, firm and masculine and way too close. She could smell on his breath the mint candy the hotel provided in the rooms. She could smell his soap, noticed the wet ends at the back of his hair. He must have already showered.

  His eyes were dark gold whiskey and focused on her one hundred percent. “As of now, I’m your head of security.”

  Thoughts of kissing flew out the window.

  “I. Am. The. Boss,” she spelled out for him as she tugged herself from his grip. “You were hired to keep an eye on Tsini. I’m glad that we agree, and you share my suspicions that someone is after my family. But you’re not taking over my life. And you’re not going after my staff. You’re wrong about this.”

  He looked ready to fight her, but then backed down, with effort, almost visibly talking himself out of it. But he still looked grim as he said, “Fine. Have it your way. Just think about this, the finger that pushed the camera button could have just as easily pulled a trigger.”

  She was certain the picture had been taken by one of the camera crew, someone hired by her enemies. Still, even if the threat wasn’t as immediate as Nash thought, it was there. Someone who meant her harm had been inside her home. And now she had proof, which she was going to take to the police once they got back home.

  She thought long and hard about that later that night, before falling asleep. But her final thought was of Nash, their lips separated by mere inches.

  There’d been heat. A full-blown solar flare she couldn’t deny but was going to ignore with all her power.

  A fling in Vegas with the hottest bodyguard in existence. Elvis would approve. But she knew from experience that this was exactly the kind of idea that sounded better than it could ever turn out. And she was so much smarter than to ever think it would be worth the inevitable grief she’d catch at the end.

  Nash was all male, but he wasn’t for her. He was going to drive her nuts before this was over. And yet, for all his annoying pigheadedness and reading her e-mail, she wasn’t going to send him packing first thing in the morning. She was going to keep him.

  He was solid and competent, came highly recommended. All she had to do was establish firm control and make him understand that as far as her life and her team were concerned, she was the one making the decisions.

  Once he got that, the rest should be easy.

  Chapter Four

  Dog show was another way of saying hell overrun by prissy canines. Someone should have told him that.

  And Nash was stuck in the poodle section, the place obviously reserved for the darkest sinners, because it was for sure the darkest corner of hell. The dogs had hairdos. Some had their own calendars—no joke—and pinup posters that were being
sold to fans. There were dogs with leashes that matched the dresses of their owners. Who in their right mind would think of something like that?

  “I think we might win a ribbon this year. I really do,” Kayla was enthusing to Elvis, routinely ignoring the open looks in her direction. She’d fielded the earlier influx of people wanting autographs with grace and class, and they were beginning to dwindle at last.

  She let anyone and everyone just walk up to her. The woman was a bodyguard’s worst nightmare. He wanted to take over so badly his teeth ached. But he kept his macho drive to control every situation in check. He couldn’t afford to be kicked off the job.

  Every penny he’d ever saved had been invested, in a weak moment, in some new program a buddy of his had invented. Nick Tarasov and his wife, Carly, were a couple of geniuses when it came to computer codes. They regularly worked on top-secret projects for the U.S. government. But they had yet to crack the commercial market. So Nash’s money could be as good as flushed down the swirly bowl or, if he were lucky, he might get back some of it by the time he was ready to retire.

  Not something he worried a lot about since in his line of work, chances were better than good that he wasn’t going to live that long. When your job was to step between a bullet and its intended recipient, sooner or later you were going to be tapped, for sure.

  Ducking bullets seemed a hell of a lot more fun than his current “entertainment,” he thought, then bit back a groan when Kayla kicked his already dark mood another notch lower.

  She pulled Tsini’s pink brush from her bag and handed it to him. “Hold this.”

  Lack of funds or not, when he was done here, he was going to have to retire. There was no coming back from this. By the end of the show, he was going to be irreversibly damaged.